3/11/11

Terrorism Mar. 11, 2011

Know Your Enemy

That's one of the main tenets of the Chinese warrior philosopher, Sun Tzu. What goes through the mind of a terrorist? Why do they target civilian targets? What motivates them?

Next week, American Military University is presenting a free webcast. On March 17, from 1 to 2:15 p.m., they will present Inside The Terrorist Mind, an in-depth analysis of the terrorist mind, and how the culture of terrorism fits into the rest of the civilized world.

The panelists will cover topics including:

Root causes of terrorism

Variations and history of terrorism

Views on why individuals join

The complexity of motivation

Where do we go from here?

There will also be a question and answer session at the end. It's a whole lot of information for just an hour and 15 minutes, so it should be interesting. If you want to take part, you can go the AMU website and register for the webcast. I'll be tuning in and will bring back a full report to you here.

Terrorists of the Future?

This is video of Pashtun children in Pakistan playing jihadi suicide bomber. The boy in black hugs his friends as he leaves on a pretend suicide attack. He approaches the boy in white who is playing a security person, then shows his toy bomb before detonating it in the crowd, while the boys in the crowd throw sand in the air to simulate an explosion. Is it just their version of cowboys & Indians or cops & robbers, or is it something much worse? I think the difference is that when we played our games as kids, the goal was to kill the bad guy but stay alive to be the hero. These kids have the goal of dying while killing the infidels.

Watch the video and let us know what you think. I'll warn you, I think it is pretty disturbing.

Earthquake/Tsunami

My thoughts and prayers are with those in Japan, Hawaii and the West Coast who lost loved ones and property today. As I type this, Japan is in utter turmoil. Several nuclear power plants are on the verge of failing. They've evacuated 45,000 from around one plant. Thousands are dead or missing, including an entire commuter train full of passengers.

In Hawaii, there was a lot of flooding and some property damage, but from what I have seen, no loss of life.

In California, many boats and piers were destroyed, and several people died when they were swept out to sea. The daughter and grandchildren of a friend had to evacuate their home near Monterrey, but did not lose anything. The folks at Backwoods Home Magazine had to shut down and evacuate their offices today, but also escaped unscathed.

We need to keep an eye on the nuclear problems in Japan. In WWII they released bomb balloons that reached the US mainland. One would think the air currents could move radiation that far if enough of it escapes the facilities.

Do you know if that webcast will be available for download? I'll be at work at the time.

A book that has some interesting info on the why of terrorists as well as how to deal with it is "Living with terrorism" by Howard Linett.http://www.amazon.com/LIVING-TERRORISM-Survival-Lessons-Jerusalem/dp/B000VBW61E/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1300022011&sr=8-1

I'm not overly concerned about significant amounts of radiation making it to the US mainland. That's quite a bit of time and distance to disperse said radioactive particles.

Anon - I think that historically, every government has committed atrocities against its people at one time or another. And ours has done some pretty terrible things to our fellow citizens. But it is by far the best one going today. I think the best defense is to stay aware and knowledgable, and the ballot box is the most powerful weapon we can use.

Army Wife - thanks for the feedback, and thanks to your husband and you for your service!

Steelheart - I just saw your comment, it got hung up in the spam filter. I ended up not able to watch it live, but I think it's available still. I'll look for a link tomorrow and post it. Thanks for the info on the book. I'll look it up. The Israelies definately deal with it daily.

Please feel free to comment on my posts. I do ask that you keep the language clean. I reserve the right to moderate comments and will delete any that violate the principles of respectful discourse or that are spam. I will not delete your comment for simply disagreeing with me.